


Crowley is listening to the Mountain Goats and feeling so called out right now

by bliumchik



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (he's pretty hardcore but he's not that hardcore), 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Fanmix, M/M, Other, The Mountain Goats, gentle mockery, nobody tell Satan about Crowley's high unicorn tolerance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 16:00:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20781236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bliumchik/pseuds/bliumchik
Summary: I joked that a Crowley fanmix would just be the album 'Goths' by the Mountain Goats, and then obviously I had to go through their last 6-8 albums looking for Extremely Crowley Music to have feelings about. I found 20 and did some quick meta about them.





	Crowley is listening to the Mountain Goats and feeling so called out right now

**Author's Note:**

> the other joke is I have made heaps of fanmixes before and it's always a struggle not to overload them with Mountain Goats songs, come yell at me about it

Full playlist is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bptnhUOG2GU&list=PL9qT2iD1GQB2_Tla3iJ5qiilgESDbqgoU). 8tracks doesn't show most of these songs in my country so I did it on youtube and you can't embed a youtube playlist, so, like... here's a series of individual embedded videos, sorry? If that's annoying please tell me and I'll put in another chapter with just the text of my tracklisting + meta.

**We begin with a Falling sequence** (I know, I KNOW) and an exploration of Crowley's general attitude to being a demon.

1\. Cry for Judas

> But I am just a broken machine  
And I do things that I don't really mean  
Long black night  
Morning frost  
I'm still here  
But all is lost  
Speed up to the precipice and then slam on the brakes  
Some people crash two or three times and then learn from their mistakes  
We are the ones who don't slow down at all  
And there's nobody there to catch us when we fall

Look, this one is. Extremely does what it says on the tin. It's about going too fast and hanging around with the wrong people until suddenly it turns out you can't take it back.

2\. Beautiful Gas Mask

> We hold hands and we jump  
And as we fall we sing

and

> Crash in from deep space  
Shot birds falling fast  
Who will be there to catch us in his jaws  
When we arrive alive at last?

and

> Toxic shapes adorn the walls  
As we rise from our knees  
Someone's coming to reward us, you wait and see  
Or crush us both like fleas

So here we have a slightly different take on the Fall, but more importantly we have a messy aftermath - one in which perhaps Lucifer went first and hardest and has already been transformed, and now his followers have no choice but to catch up and see what he's going to make of them.

3\. Song For Ted Sallis

> Into the source of a squall  
I inevitably fall  
Toward the well-spring of all agony  
Shuffling endlessly  
Whether or not it was always going to be this way  
It only mattered yesterday
> 
> No skin like the skin you woke up in
> 
> No skin like the skin you woke up in

and then:

> Wherever my former self went  
It was an accident  
Try to picture him in my mind's eye  
Say goodbye
> 
> No skin like the skin you woke up in  
No skin like the skin you woke up in

Crowley listens to this song six times in a row in some kind of dissociative fugue and then refuses to ever listen to it again.

4\. The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement

> Some of us warm to the effort  
Trying to get our shapes back  
Teeth filed down to fine points  
Framework too tight  
Strain at the joints
> 
> And I'm hardcore but I'm not that hardcore  
I'm hardcore but I'm not that hardcore  
I'm hardcore but I'm not that hardcore  
I'm pretty hardcore but I'm not that hardcore

Oh look, it's Crowley: pretty hardcore but not that hardcore. He feels a little bit queasy during parts of the verses but then the chorus feels and he's just like "aw... no... I mean... yeah... ah, shit." Crowley tries to avoid tempting any Mountain Goats fans out of an irrational fear that one of them will hand this album to Satan and it'll blow his cover.

5\. Unicorn Tolerance

> Try hard to look hard  
Behind my blackout sunglasses
> 
> But I have high unicorn tolerance

and

> Get a momentary chance to see  
The thing I've been trying to beat to death  
The soft creature that I used to be  
The better animal I used to be

Yeah listen the... the unicorn is Aziraphale in this metaphor _and he must never know_.

**Now we come to an A/C interlude.**

Choose your own adventure: Did Crowley recover some memories of celestial romance? Did Crowley and Aziraphale cuddle a little in Eden before it became clear that they were actually expected to be each other's direct opponents? Did the Arrangement blossom at some point before the great war started heating up again? Whichever you choose, they very much did not Talk About Their Feelings until Armageddon was upon them and it made everything very fraught for a few hundred years there.

All four of the songs that follow make Crowley clear his throat a lot and suddenly feel the urge to talk about the weather, or possibly football (a sport he knows nothing about).

6\. New Zion

> I lay down by the water  
Dreamed a dream of where I come from  
Old things made new  
Waiting for you

7\. Age of Kings

> Felt your name burn in like a tattoo into my skin  
Rain on the clay tiles all night  
Your head nestled beneath my chin  
Gold light shining on so many things  
In the age of kings

8\. How to Embrace a Swamp Creature 

> Go where I go, do what I must  
Crawl starving on my belly  
Licking up the dry dust

and

> I try to tell you just why I've come  
It's like I've got molasses on my tongue

and

> I stand where the flashing swords gleam  
And I try to shake my head clear of the dream  
But I'm out of my element I can't breathe

9\. Until I Am Whole

> I think I'll stay here,  
Til I feel whole again.  
I don't know when.

We conclude the sequence with Crowley's long nap.

**Interlude:** Just songs that are very Crowley and basically modern era.

10\. Wear Black

> Wear black on your forgotten red heart  
Wear black in the present tense  
Wear black when you come around  
Wear black in your absence  
Wear black high as a kite  
Wear black dead sober  
Wear black when the struggle starts   
Wear black when it's over

Wanna get called out a little more? C'mon, AJ, they got you bang to rights on this one.

11\. Harlem Roulette

> Every dream's a good dream  
Even awful dreams are good dreams  
If you're doing it right

and 

> Nothing in the shadows but the shadow hands  
Reaching out to sad, young, frightened men  
The loneliest people in the whole wide word are the ones you're never going to see again

Because Crowley rather likes humans and sometimes his job makes him sad. Uh, drunk! Sometimes his job makes him drunk.

12\. Alpha Incipiens

> i look over to warn you but something's happening
> 
> we lean back and we clink our glasses
> 
> the only thing i know is that i love you  
and i'm holding on

Honestly, much more fun to be drunk with Aziraphale. Definitely no anxiety about any of this.

Now we're starting the **run-up to Armageddon**.

13\. High Hawk Season

> I heard the wings beat on the wind tonight  
As the heat stole power from the darkening light

and

> Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake  
We are young supernovas and the heat's about to break
> 
> Who will rise and who will sink?  
Who's going to stand his ground and who's going to blink?

Wake up, Crowley, some shit is about to go down and you're gonna spend a really unnecessarily long time trying to convince Aziraphale to do something about it.

14\. Deuteronomy 2:10

> I'm all alone here as I try my tiny song  
Claim my place beneath the sky, but I won't be here for long
> 
> I sang all night  
The moon shone on me through the trees  
No brothers left  
And there'll be no more after me

"All creatures great and smoke. I mean small. Great and small. Lot of them with brains. And then, bazamm."

15\. Up the Wolves

> There'll always be a few things, maybe several things  
That you're gonna find really difficult to forgive

Listen, this is where the TV miniseries really comes into its own - because they cast a woman as God. Which means...

> Our mother has been absent Ever since we founded Rome  
But there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home

Oh yes. Are you picking up what I am putting down here? Oh yessss.

16\. Rain in Soho

> No promise sweeter than a blood pact  
Nothing harder to go through with than a vanishing act  
No morning colder than the first frost  
No friends closer than the ones we've lost  
Nothing sharper than a serpent's tooth  
Nothing harder than the gospel truth  
Though you repent and don sackcloth and try to make nice  
You can't cross the same river twice

Bandstand scene. Fuck me up, fam.

17\. Luna

> Rise through the flames and end again in flames at last  
Stay free, stay free  
Invisible armies march by night for me  
Stay on my guard  
Burn hard  
Rage on  
All gone

I have to say that I have not yet had the courage to read any of the fics where Aziraphale doesn't manage to come back from the discorporation right away and Crowley averts the apocalypse in his memory. But like. Hi, here's a song for the bookshop fire. By the time Crowley hears this one he is extremely suspicious about John Darnielle's supernatural affiliation.

18\. Sax Rohmer #1

> All roads lead toward the same blocked intersection  
I am coming home to you  
With my own blood in my mouth  
And I am coming home to you  
If it's the last thing that I do

If it wasn't for the whole, er, Queen... thing... Crowley would have been listening to this song on repeat as he drove to Tadfield in his flaming Bentley.

And finally a couple **nice songs for a happy A/C ending** because I'm a sap, yeah?

19\. Love Love Love

> Snakes in the grass beneath our feet, rain in the clouds above  
Some moments last forever  
But some flare out with love, love, love

Crowley is willing to admit he's not 100% sure what's going on with this song, but something about it makes him feel hopeful anyway.

20\. Never Quite Free

> when you see him, you'll know  
It's okay to find the faith to saunter forward  
There's no fear of shadows spreading where you stand  
And you'll breathe easier just knowing that the worst is all behind you

Guuuuuuuys ;_; don't you see he can saunter vaguely FORWARD now with his INEFFABLE HUSBAND akshfjhsdjh where are you going? come back I'm still having feelings about this!!!!


End file.
